'Walking Dead' Season 4 Spoilers: Does Rick Get Bitten During Season Premiere? [PHOTOS]

"Walking Dead" season 4 spoilers are going wild ever since set pictures leaked showing Rick with a heavily bandaged hand in advance of the episode one premiere. It has many fans fearing that Rick has been bitten by walkers or attacked by the Governor.

With Greg Nicotero as the executive director for the season premiere we can be sure that season 4 will have some dramatic incidents.

Nicotero has been noted for episodes like the one in which Sophia was revealed in the barn. He says the current season is "bigger than any script we've done before," now he has some "Walking Dead" season 4 spoilers for us:

"In the first episode this season, one of the guys in my crew was like, "You did every gag that you ever did in three years of 'The Walking Dead' in one episode." We had walkers. We had mummified corpses. We had puppets. We had zombie bites ... There was even a couple of gags that we came up with on the fly -- there was a couple of sculptures that my guys in Los Angeles had done and I said, "Oh yeah, that's a great walker." Where people are like, "What are the iconic walkers for season four going to be?" I'm like, "Well, you'll just have to see!"

With regard to the new walkers, we already speculated that they could be faster runner zombies, mutated zombies or more organized zombies with a degree of leadership. Some interesting characters being added to "Walking Dead" season 4 are:

It was established during season 3 of "Walking Dead" that a zombie bite is not necessarily fatal. If you act fast enough and amputate the affected limb, as they did for Herschel, then it is possible to survive without becoming a walker. The set photos were posted on the "Walking Dead" Facebook fan page, Dead Talk.

Credit: Dead Walking via IBTimes

(Warning MAJOR MAJOR "Walking Dead Season 4" Spoilers)

"Fans of the Image Comics series well know that Rick lost his right hand in a cruel display from his first meeting with the Governor, but series creator Robert Kirkman has repeatedly expressed his regret over the narrative decision. Not only that, but such an injury would prove difficult to portray across the potential length of the series."

In a major "Walking Dead" season 4 spoiler for fans who have read the comic, Rick does get bitten and lose his hand according to IBTimes:

Credit: Dead Talk via IBTimes

"If we look to the graphic novels for clues, Rick's hand could have been injured in either of two situations. In the comic books, Rick breaks and mutilates his hand in the prison when he attacks a character named Thomas as he believes the man murdered Hershel's two youngest daughters, and attempted to murder Andrea. While Rick doesn't kill Thomas, the group does decide to hang him. However, before they can go through with it, a woman named Patricia lets him out of a cell. Maggie ends up shooting him multiple times, and while the group debates what to do with Patricia, a separate group in the prison tries to force Rick's group out," reported Amanda Remling of the International Business Times.

However the show has diverged from the comic in the past, also its worth noting that in the comic Rick technically had his hand mutilated while battling the Governor who is still clearly out there,

As creator Robert Kirkman explained, they still have plans for the Governor in season four. "We always knew that it was a bigger story than would fit into one season," Kirkman said to TVLine after the season-three finale. "There's still a lot more to be done with this guy. We've known from the very first minute of season three that we would be keeping the Governor around for a while."

It would also be difficult to portray on the show. Rick didn't lose his hand in his first encounter with the Governor and the loss of his hand now would cripple him as a leader with no one to fill his shoes. Even the comic book's writer Kirkman agrees,

"When I'm writing a comic book, I don't think about what I'm doing," he dished. "I go, 'Oh, it'd be pretty cool if they cut his hand off right now. That'd be pretty shocking, right?' Then I do it, and five issues later, I write, 'Rick opens a can of beans,' and then I look at the script and think 'He can't do that now.' I don't even think that through."

The pictures are fairly blurry so it is hard to tell the extent of the injury but Screen Crush reports:

"You've been warned by now of MAJOR SPOILERS for 'The Walking Dead' season 4 and 'The Walking Dead' comics at large, but it seems reports of Rick Grimes potentially losing a hand in the coming season have been greatly exaggerated, at least for now. Where earlier distant set photos showed the character sporting a major bandage on his right hand, closer shots of actor Andrew Lincoln from the same shoot reveal at least some of the fingers to remain present and un-bandaged."

Overall, this leaves two possibilities for "Walking Dead" season 4 spoilers involving Rick and his hand. He could have had a few fingers bitten off by a walker or it could have been as a result of an ambush by the Governor. In the pictures Rick does appear to be out in the wilderness with a fully supplied car, we speculated earlier that the Governor would start to engage in guerilla war against the prison population so this seems to comport with that.

These "Walking Dead" season 4 spoilers are only a temporary to tide us over until the show premieres in October 2013.

What do you think of the "Walking Dead" season 4 spoilers so far with regard to Rick's injury ?

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